Our period of uterine development can be divided into four. This fourfold division, rather than the classical trimester, enables us to move from a purely physiological context to an ontological framework where each realm is incorporated into our matrix. Ernst Haeckel introduced in the late nineteenth century the idea that ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,’and although later proven false, the idea is now accepted that in our embryological development we mirror embryos of our evolutionary ancestors. Be-as-it-may, the common connection between ontogeny (to be created) and phylogeny is still seen as meaningful, and we use the model to illustrate that we contain the early kingdoms as well as embryonic patterns originating from our evolutionary lines.

During this 40 week period the four elements of self develop, illustrating a natural order, a horizontal relationship across time, and an unfolding (explicate) reality from the first principle or implicate reality. It is an integral unfolding of an organism over a period of time what emerges as a helpless organism but is recognizable in its nature a s a human. Contained within this human are the three other elements - a material form, a physiological or vegetal internal structure, an active motile and future pacing animal, enclosed in the familiar and comforting shape of the human.

This unfolding has an interesting dynamic associated with it, for over the 40 week cycle four transitional moments occur, with the fourth, birth, being the last. They occur at the cross over point of each 10 week period. The first is the physiological moment of acceptance – the mother accepts the embryo ‘as is’ – potent, congruent, integrous or whole. The pregnancy will continue, and the mother does not abort. It is as if the template is congruent.

Using our iconic symbols we could place the staff – the symbol for integrity – as a bridge or transitional icon between these two parts of the time line to represent this intact, congruent set of instructions. At around 20 weeks (slightly sooner in multiparous women) there is a moment known as the quickening; it is the time when the mother feels the movement of the fetus and knows that there is life within her. This could be symbolized by the symbol of the snake to denote rhythm, movement, transformation, unfolding, life. In the weeks nearing 30 the fetus is covered in a thick gel that protects the skin, and as this begins to decrease, muscle bulk increases, thalamic connections develop, the lungs mature and the eyelids open and close, and the visual cortex becomes more developed. It is as if the fetus now develops the capacity to see – and this third transitional period could be marked also by an icon, the wings.

The fetus then reaches its final moment, when it leaves the proverbial uterine safe place and exits into the world at birth. This is its most dangerous moment as it surmounts the difficult journey of vaginal birth, or in the western world, increasingly meets the fear of physicians of birth itself, and is unceremoniously taken out by caesarian section. In a similar fashion another icon could be placed at the end – a crossing point from an inner world; safe and secure within the womb into an unknown future. Perhaps the child is in its first active yet largely unconscious surrender as it emerges into life. The mother too, surrenders to the inevitable moment of birth (or to her physicians and their needs for safety and wellbeing). In this case we have added a fourth symbol, that of a dove. This symbolizes peace, the promise and hope (as in Noah and the flood), surrender to the Creator or the Divine, or as some skeptics might put it, to ‘lady luck’.

A child emerges into the world, and is completely helpless. Like many mammals we human infants are unable to move, unlike herbivores which have to get up onto legs to survive a hostile world. Instead we are born into an uncertain future, needing to be fully looked after by our mother. At a graphical level we could start to employ symbols to represent the various aspect of self. In this way we can represent ourselves in a particular manner, and manipulate the internal order of these elements that compose us to help illustrate changes of state, or situations which occur in our lives, and that a graphical representation aids in us understanding what happens to us, or what state or pattern we are held in.

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